Latest / Executive Careers with Fexingo: VP, C-Suite, and Senior Leadership Career Strategy / How Senior Leaders Use Reverse Mentoring to Stay Current
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this practice that I think a lot of senior leaders talk about in theory but rarely execute well — reverse mentoring. The idea that you, as a VP or C-suite executive, formally learn from someone a couple of decades younger, typically on topics like social media, emerging tech, or workplace culture shifts. Luna: And when you say 'formally,' you mean structured, not just grabbing coffee with an intern once. Lucas: Exactly. I'm thinking of a specific case from late last year. The CEO of a Fortune 500 industrial firm — I'm not naming names because the program was internal — realized their brand voice on LinkedIn was still using language that felt like a 1990s annual report. So she asked a 25-year-old product associate to be her reverse mentor for six months. Luna: How did they structure it? Lucas: They met every two weeks, thirty minutes, always with a specific agenda. The first four sessions were about platform mechanics — hashtags, posting cadence, how LinkedIn's algorithm surfaces content. The next four were about tone: the associate showed the CEO posts from younger executives she admired and they dissected why they worked. Luna: And did it actually change anything? Lucas: It did. The CEO rewrote her LinkedIn profile from scratch, started posting weekly instead of quarterly, and within five months her engagement among under-35 followers jumped about twelve percent. But more importantly, she told her board that the experience made her realize how much corporate communication had drifted away from how customers actually talk. Luna: That's a big win — but I wonder how common that outcome is. My experience with reverse mentoring programs is that they often fizzle because the senior leader doesn't really commit the time, or the junior mentor feels like they're just being used for 'young person translation.' Lucas: That's the number one failure mode. If the executive treats the mentor as a stand-in for 'all millennials' or 'all Gen Z,' it's going to fail. The best reverse mentoring relationships are specific — you're not learning about 'young people,' you're learning about a particular skill or domain the mentor excels in. Luna: Right. There's a difference between 'teach me about TikTok' and 'help me understand why our recruitment videos are landing flat with new grads.' One is a skill, the other is a demographic generalization. Lucas: Which brings me to another point — the best reverse mentors are often not the most junior person in the room. They're mid-career, maybe three to five years in, who have mastered something the senior leader hasn't. A product manager who runs A/B tests. A data analyst who builds dashboards in a tool the CTO has never touched. Luna: So it's not about age, it's about domain expertise that the senior leader lacks. Lucas: Exactly. And that's why I think the term 'reverse mentoring' is a bit misleading. It implies the traditional hierarchy is flipped. But really, it's just mentoring with a specific focus area where the mentor happens to be more junior in the org chart. Luna: That's a helpful reframe. So what's the right structure if a senior leader wants to start one? Lucas: Three things. First, define a clear goal — not 'learn about social media,' but 'learn how to use LinkedIn analytics to measure thought leadership reach.' Second, set a fixed duration, like three or six months, with a specific end date and a deliverable — maybe the leader presents what they learned to their team. Third, the mentor needs real access: skip-level meetings, visibility into strategy, not just a monthly chat. Luna: That last part is crucial. If the mentor doesn't feel like they're actually contributing to something meaningful, they'll disengage. I've seen programs where the executive just wants to check a diversity box and the mentor feels like a prop. Lucas: And that's where the relationship can actually benefit the mentor's career too. They get exposure to how decisions are made at the top, which is invaluable for their own growth. In the best cases, it becomes a genuine two-way street. Luna: I want to come back to something you mentioned earlier — the CEO who changed her LinkedIn profile. That's a visible change. But what about less visible shifts? Like how a leader thinks about strategy or culture? Lucas: That's actually where reverse mentoring can have the biggest impact. I talked to a VP of engineering at a SaaS company who reverse-mentored with a junior developer on how the team viewed agile workflows. The developer showed her that the daily stand-ups had become a status-report session, not a coordination tool. She changed the format, and team satisfaction scores went up. Luna: So it's about challenging assumptions that have calcified over years. Lucas: Exactly. And that's hard to get from a peer or a consultant because they're often too close to the same assumptions. A junior person sees the gap between what leadership says and what actually happens. Luna: That reminds me — I read a study from Deloitte a couple years ago that said organizations with formal reverse mentoring programs had 27% higher retention among employees under thirty. The logic was that those employees felt their voice mattered. Lucas: That tracks. And it's not just retention — it's also a pipeline for future leaders. The mentors get a taste of strategic thinking, and the mentees get a reality check on how the next generation views the work. Luna: You know, speaking of making sure people's voices matter — that's something we try to do here on this show too. A handful of listeners chip in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that's literally what funds making this many of these episodes without ads. So if you've gotten value from a specific episode or just want to keep it ad-free, that's the way. Lucas: Yeah, it's a small group that keeps the lights on, and we appreciate it every time. Now — back to reverse mentoring. One question I get a lot is: how do you find the right mentor if your company doesn't have a formal program? Luna: That's a practical problem. Most organizations don't have a structure for this. Lucas: Right. So you have to be intentional. Look for someone who's already demonstrated expertise in the area you want to learn — maybe they've given a lunch and learn, or they lead an internal community of practice. Then approach them with a humble ask: 'I'd like to learn from you. Would you be willing to meet twice a month for three months?' Luna: And be explicit about what you're not asking for. You're not asking for career advice for them, you're not asking them to be your assistant on a project. You're asking to be taught. Lucas: Exactly. And you need to make it safe for them to be honest. If you're a VP, your presence can be intimidating. So you have to signal that you want candor, not flattery. One way is to start with specific feedback you've already received — 'my team told me my emails are too formal, can you help me rewrite a few?' Luna: That's a concrete starting point. What about the flip side — the mentor's career benefit? I've seen cases where the mentor gets promoted faster because they're now visible to the C-suite. Lucas: It happens, but it shouldn't be the goal. The mentor should do it because they want to develop their coaching skills and influence. If they treat it as a visibility play, it can come across as transactional. But in practice, the visibility is a natural byproduct. Luna: I think the best reverse mentoring relationships are the ones where both parties forget which direction the mentoring is supposed to go. Lucas: That's the ideal. And it's why I think this tool is underused at the senior level. Too many executives assume they have nothing to learn from people who haven't 'paid their dues' yet. But the world is changing fast enough that everyone has blind spots. Luna: So if a VP or C-suite leader wants to start a reverse mentoring relationship tomorrow, what's the single most important thing they should do? Lucas: Name the specific skill or perspective they want to develop, and then find the person in the organization who's already good at it — regardless of their title. Then ask directly, humbly, and with a time-bound commitment. That's it. Luna: It sounds simple, but I think the humility part is what trips most people up. Lucas: It is. But the leaders who do it well are often the ones who stay relevant the longest. And that's worth a little discomfort.